PogoPlug Adds Cloud Storage, Customers Scratch Heads

PogoPlug has added a DropBox-a-like offering to its previously excellent product range

PogoPlug, the personal data ‘cloud’ without a cloud, has now added storage in the cloud. Confused? Let us help.

The PogoPlug was, and still is, a little box that lets you access — via the internet — all the media stored on a hard drive at home. It’s like your own cloud, only without the privacy issues or long upload times of actual cloud services like DropBox.

Now, though, PogoPlug has added an actual, honest-to-goodness cloud service. It works in conjunction with two PogoPlug apps, and integrates with your PogoPlug box if you have one. You get 5GB storage free, just by signing up, and can increase for prices familiar to DropBox users: 50GB for $10 per month, 100GB for $20 per month.

Using the PogoPlug mobile app, you can automatically upload images and video, and stream down any content you have in your cloud. You can also send media to Twitter or Facebook from within the app, and do the same from the desktop versions of the applications.

I guess this will appeal to some, but actual cloud storage seems to defeat the whole point of the hardware PogoPlug, with its inherent privacy and those non-existent uploads. Neither does it integrate with hundreds of already-existing apps, which is DropBox’s big advantage.

There is one useful-sounding part to all this, though. By paying a one-time fee of $30, you can get some software which turns a PC into a PogoPlug. Of course, to be really useful, you’ll need to leave it on all the time, which is precisely the kind of the original PogoPlug lets you avoid.